


faithful men all fall the hardest

by patho (ghostsoldier)



Series: a knife and a prayer [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Fugue Feast, M/M, Priests, pre-game, request fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:15:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsoldier/pseuds/patho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At calendar's end, the Fugue Feast begins. It is a time of anarchy, and freedom. Wrongs are not recorded. Oathbreakers remain free from censure. Any act, no matter how unspeakable, may be performed without consequence. The Fugue Feast exists out of time.</p><p>Or: two men meet at the edge of Holger Square. Under normal circumstances, they might try to kill each other. These are not normal circumstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	faithful men all fall the hardest

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [mugumugu](mugumugu.tumblr.com), who asked for Daud/Martin and a Fugue Feast.

The man might be wearing the coat of an Overseer, but he moves with the grace and economy of an assassin. The dichotomy is — to use the parlance of Daud’s favored deity — _fascinating_. However, he’s not the reason Daud is here, and so he deliberately puts the man out of his mind and moves on.  
  
In and of itself, the Fugue Feast holds no appeal. When you live unbound by the rigid strictures of the Abbey, the unbridled freedom that comes at year’s end carries little sense of gluttony or transgression. For Daud, the appeal is of a different sort: when authority closes its eyes, turns its face away, and promises to forget the wrongs committed while the Fugue fires burn, it is the _perfect_ time for men such as he to conduct their very particular business.  
  
Holger Square, normally so bleak and gray and severe, is now a riot of color and sound. Tyvian red flows like water and barrels of bootleg whiskey are propped on tables, surrounded by thirsty revelers who toast their friends and the fires and whatever else they can think of. Girls from the Cat sashay through the throng to lead both men and women away by the hand. Sometimes, they don’t bother leading them anywhere at all; as he tracks his target through the crowd, Daud steps around intertwined bodies and discarded clothing. As the night winds on and the crowd grows, most of the Overseers currently in their uniforms will have lost or abandoned them along with their masks. The shops always do brisk trade in black wool coats and silver buttons after this first night of the Feast.  
  
The mark is in a cluster of people, spilling wine on the man next to him and laughing uproariously at something that probably isn’t very funny. Daud edges close enough that he can listen to the conversation without being seen, and then settles into a pose of studied relaxation meant to make him look more intoxicated than he actually is. The whiskey he’s been nursing over the past hour isn’t very good, but what it lacks in flavor it makes up for in strength and he’ll have to be careful if he wants to pull this off with the finesse he expects of himself.  
  
“Not much for drinking, I see.”  
  
Daud glances to the left, and relishes the momentary flash of surprise he is so rarely allowed to experience. It’s the man from earlier, the one who wore the trappings of faith but moved like a killer. There is alcohol on his breath and his speech is slurred, but Daud isn’t stupid and there’s something _sharp_ in the man’s eyes.  
  
The slurring, he thinks, is deliberate. A lesser man might not have noticed.  
  
Daud is not a lesser man.  
  
He knocks back the remainder of his whiskey and notes the way the man’s eyes follow the line of his bared throat. His sharp, barely audible intake of breath. A pink flash of tongue, just wetting his lower lip.  
  
Daud smirks and shifts against the wall, canting his body towards the Overseer and widening his stance ever so slightly. He can see his target easily now — still near the wine barrel, of course, and Daud suspects he’ll be there for a while — and as an added bonus the Overseer now shields him from any curious eyes that might turn his way.  
  
“I’m afraid I don’t have the head for it,” he lies.  
  
The man chuckles at that, low and rough, shoots Daud a grin that’s more honest than charming. “Then I suppose it would be in bad taste for me to offer to bring you another drink.”  
  
“You can offer whatever you like,” Daud says. “Whether I accept is something you’ll just have to find out.”  
  
The man’s eyes darken, but there’s barely any triumph in it because it’s just _too easy_. Daud knows this man. Not this specific man, no — he would’ve remembered if he’d met him before, because Daud always remembers men like this, men with dangerous smiles and falcon’s eyes. They’re the sort of men that require recruiting or killing, and he has happily done both when warranted.  
  
But Overseers are a peculiar bunch. If not for the Fugue, then Daud would either be drawing a knife across this one’s throat or staying far, far away from him, because he has that _look_. It’s the look of a man who’s wound so tight that his springs are about to break. The Fugue Feast was all but made for people like him, and if it weren’t for his suspicion that there’s more lurking beneath the uniform than blatherings about heresy then Daud might feel guilty over how easily this situation is manipulated to his advantage.  
  
“Go on,” he says. Tenses when his target moves, relaxes again when he realizes the man was just helping himself to more wine. “Try me.”  
  
The Overseer moves like a big cat, all sleek muscle and predatory grace, hemming Daud against the brick with hands on either side of his head. It’s probably meant to carry a hint of threat, but Daud could kill him in at least a dozen different ways before it even occurred to the man to try for his knife and so he tilts his head back and doesn’t bother to keep the challenge out of his expression. This young Overseer is proving a most welcome distraction, and Daud _will_ enjoy it.  
  
“What’s your name?” the man says.  
  
The target has his arms draped around two of the girls from the Cat and doesn’t look like he plans to go anywhere soon. Excellent.  
  
Daud hooks his gloved fingers into the thick leather of the Overseer’s belt, and pulls him forward. The man’s breath hitches and he settles easily between Daud’s thighs.  
  
Too simple.  
  
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you,” Daud says. Walks his fingers up the neat line of silver buttons, breathes in the taste of wool and whiskey and sweat. “I don’t object to knowing yours, though.”  
  
“Martin,” the Overseer says. Last name or first, it doesn’t really matter, because his next words are, “It’s just that you look incredibly familiar,” and Daud curses himself and Anton Sokolov with every breath he has because what had he been _thinking_ , sitting for that damn portrait on a whim. _Stupid_. Going unmasked is a calculated risk he rarely indulges in these days, but a mask would’ve been too noticeable here and with the amount of drink flowing he’d assumed he would be safe.  
  
He knows better. Stupid, stupid, stupid.  
  
“I sincerely doubt that,” he says. He deliberately rolls his hips and hates how _relieved_ he feels when Martin sucks in a startled breath and his expression glazes over. “I don’t usually run in Overseer circles.”  
  
“Ah, but I wasn’t always an Overseer,” Martin says vaguely, but before Daud can reply he ducks down and captures Daud’s mouth with his own. It’s not a moment too soon — if Daud had seen any spark of recognition whatsoever in Martin’s face, he would’ve had to slide a dagger between his ribs and that would be a definite shame. Things are just getting _interesting_.  
  
Martin’s kiss is wet and hungry, smoky with whiskey and coffee and the cigarettes he probably allows himself to smoke but once a year. He kisses like he allows himself that only once a year as well, licking fiercely into Daud’s mouth, not at all shy about using his teeth, and when Daud groans he slides his hands to Daud’s ass and hitches him _up_ , pinning him to the wall with a firm thigh pushed solidly between Daud’s own.  
  
Over Martin’s shoulder, the target is slurping wine off the décolletage of a dark-haired courtesan. This is working out better than Daud could’ve hoped.  
  
Martin’s eyes are closed so Daud keeps his open, training half his gaze on his target even as his body settles into familiar, long-forgone rhythms. Martin’s hips move restlessly against his but he doesn’t seem inclined to do much more than kiss Daud breathless, almost like it’s more about being _touched_ than about sex itself. Given the level of debauchery around them — most of it involving men in uniforms like Martin’s — this strikes Daud as both disturbing and pathetic. Martin must be one of the _true_ believers, then: denying himself everything that makes him human in order to adhere to the Abbey’s pedantic rules.  
  
Poor fool.  
  
Although he hadn’t planned for this encounter to be anything more than what it currently is, Daud’s amused to find himself wanting more. Wants to lead Martin to a dark room somewhere, strip him bare, take him apart inch by inch until he forgets his own name and cries out promises he can’t possibly keep. Sink teeth into his shoulder and fuck him into the mattress and _mark_ him — in more ways than one — this sad, stupid little believer with his assassin’s eyes and his heart full of Stricture and his need to be touched.  
  
Daud wants to _ruin him_ , and Martin would thank him for it.  
  
For a moment, he seriously considers it. Men like this can be useful, and the noise Martin makes when Daud tugs his collar aside and fastens his mouth to the salty skin there is very pretty indeed. The Outsider factor might be an issue, but he wouldn’t be the first Overseer drawn into Daud’s employ. He certainly won’t be the last. He could—  
  
The dark-haired girl has the target by both hands, and she’s drawing him back into the crowd and towards the Golden Cat. Daud curses with real and sincere regret and twists free of Martin’s embrace.  
  
“What are you — wait!” Martin grabs Daud’s arm, and it’s only because Daud’s feeling a definite fondness towards the man right now that he doesn’t promptly break his hand. “Was it something I—”  
  
He breaks off and claps a hand to the side of his neck. The expression on his face is one of angry, baffled betrayal, and as the sleep dart takes hold Daud catches him when his knees buckle and carefully maneuvers him to the ground. The target has disappeared from sight, but Daud isn’t worried; he knows the direction they went in and their probable destination, and he’s got plenty of time.  
  
Martin fumbles blearily with his coat, probably trying to get at a knife. Daud catches his hands and holds them until the muscles go lax, and then leans down to kiss him on the forehead.  
  
“Another time, perhaps,” he says gently. The accusation in Martin’s eyes before they flutter closed doesn’t make him feel guilty in the least, but he does indulge in a brief twinge of regret for how the evening might have ended. The Fugue Feast holds little appeal in and of itself, but some aspects of it are better than others.  
  
Oh well.  
  
Daud straightens, turns his mind forward, slips into the crowd like a dagger being sheathed. Martin will wake in an hour with a fuzzy memory and the taste of whiskey in his mouth, and Daud will be cutting the throat of a man he’s being very well-paid to dispose of.  
  
 _Another time_ , Daud thinks, and allows himself a smile.  
  
After all…tonight was just one night, and this city is badly in need of catharsis. There’s time.


End file.
